Webcam

So I always use my webcam on software like Skype, I also have tried
to use it on native Linux environments and I have had mixed results. For
the most part I can get it to run but things are always not present
when I need to just use it.

Here are some great command lines to use with software that I regularly use:

mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0

This
will show you the webcam stream but won't really record it. I like this
because is commands that I use all the time to re-encode or play most
of my media. I use mplayer more than VLC for example to listen and watch videos on my Laptop. So mplayer and mencoder are always there in my devices. Mencoder shows:

this will indeed record but the parameter '-s' create a smaller display at 320x240 and record it to the file out.mpg.

All
these commands record video input from the webcam but doesn't add
effects or any retouching. However is pretty good for something fast to
record and use something like cinelerra.

The other big thing is audio and here I have a question:

How can we switch the input of the recording?

So
far it only records to dsp which I guess is the audio card which in
turn be the microphone, but I haven't played with capture inputs and
switch from mic to another channel like the computer noises. Input
source just shows the microphone both, internal and environmental one. I
might need to play around with sox to get this working.